Why “Bloody” Mary?
Mary was fanatically determined to suppress Protestantism. Old laws against heretics were revived, and under Reginald Pole, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, almost 300 men and women, including Thomas Cranmer, were burned at the stake for heresy between February 1555 and November 1558–almost as many in thirty-four months as were executed for religious reasons in forty-five years under Elizabeth I. Many Protestant clergymen–the “Marian exiles”– fled to Germany or Switzerland when Mary came to the throne. There they picked up the doctrines and practises of Lutherans, Calvinists and Zwinglians. They returned after Mary’s death and were instrumental in modifying Anglican doctrine along Protestant lines.
